JAKARTA, June 14 (Xinhua) -- A senior official at the Transportation ministry said on Tuesday that government would speed up the schedule to commence railway transport project in the nation's easternmost province of Papua to the second half this year from the initial schedule set by the end of next year.
"The government has requested the initial groundbreaking of the project be accelerated to the second half this year," Prasetyo Boeditjahjanto, Railway Director General at the ministry said here.
The railway transport project in Papua, called Trans-Papua, was designated to start from Sorong, serving the city in Papua province to Manokwari in the neighboring West Papua province.
The initial 390-km railway route from Sorong to Manokwari requires some 8 trillion rupiah (about 598.3 million U.S. dollars) excluding the land compensation cost, Prasetyo said.
However, the railway project in the initial Trans-Papua route was still hindered by land acquisition problem on land hosting 4 kilometers of railway track in the route.
The Trans-Papua railway transport would connect cities in Papua and West Papua provinces. Besides Sorong to Manokwari that takes the longest route, the other planned routes were Manokwari to Nabire, Nabire to Timika, Nabire to Sarmi and Sarmi to Papua's capital of Jayapura.
In total the Trans-Papua railway transport would serve 1,550 kilometer of public transport across those Papuan cities.
Some 108.3 trillion rupiah (about 8 billion dollars) of funds were required to finance development of those routes which were expected to be completed no later than 2024.
